Mayor Austin Bonta wants Portage to join the ranks of other cities its size in getting a full-time city attorney.
With a population estimated at 38,882, Portage is the third-largest city in Northwest Indiana, behind Hammond and Gary.
Bonta even has someone in mind for the job and introduced him at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. Dan Bartnicki, of Portage, is executive assistant to the general counsel at the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board.
Bartnicki said he is willing to take the $50,000 pay cut to leave his federal job and work for the city. His salary would be $148,000, with benefits bringing the total compensation package to about $212,000.
Currently, the city uses private attorneys working under contract. So far, that has worked out. However, a full-time city attorney would be available 24/7 to help with urgent issues except when on vacation. That’s when attorneys now under contract, likely Scott McClure, could fill in for Bartnicki, Bonta said.
Bartnicki would do more than the private attorneys do for the city.
“Sometimes I just need someone to look over an email before I send it,” Bonta said. That’s easy when there’s an in-house attorney to do so with no concerns about billable hours adding up.
Bartnicki has written complex federal regulations, which provided experience that could be useful in drafting ordinances on a timely basis.
His experience includes serving as a U.S. Marine Corps judge advocate, he said, and working with private law firms that have provided legal services for municipalities like Gary, Hammond, Hobart and Schererville.
Council President Victoria Vasquez asked what boards and commissions Bartnicki would represent if he became a full-time city attorney. If the council supports it, he said, meetings to determine the scope of the job would commence.
“I think this is a big process between now and our next meeting,” Bonta said, to figure out what the legal department would look like.
The Redevelopment Commission and the utilities department have their own sources of revenue, so they could keep their own legal counsel if they chose to do so, Bonta said.
The council approved amending the salary ordinance. Bartnicki would start no sooner than December.
At this point, Bartnicki said, commissions could keep their own legal counsel. He would want to start working on debt collections, ordinance enforcement and being available to department heads. That would include working with the human resources director on worker compensation issues.
Bonta stressed that this position is intentionally being created as apolitical, not the mayor’s counsel. The aim is to provide legal services that aren’t currently being done.
“We could be a lot more robust if we had full-time counsel,” Bonta said.
Bartnicki’s salary would make him the highest-paid city employee.
Hiring him would mean sharply reducing the amount paid for outside counsel. “I think that is something we definitely will discuss when we do the budget,” Bonta said.
Last year, the city paid $206,000 out of the general fund just for attorneys, Clerk-Treasurer Liz Modesto said.
“Most municipalities our size do have an in-house attorney,” she added.
“I’ve been in-house with my agency for 18 years,” Bartnicki said. “The goal is not to have to wait on those things. It’s all Portage, all the time.”
In other business, the council voted Tuesday to establish a way for the police department to dispose of abandoned property it’s holding.
Evidence being held for criminal cases isn’t included in this ordinance.
“You name it, we probably collected it,” Police Chief Michael Candiano said.
Some of that would be lost-and-found items turned in to the police. Sometimes, there’s property seized in theft cases for which the victim doesn’t come forward and can’t be identified by police.
“You’d be amazed how many people have something in their vehicle and they don’t know anything about it. They don’t know where it came from,” Candiano said.
“It’s a storage issue. We’re running out of room for actual criminal-type stuff,” he said. “We’ve had things that have been in there for eight or nine years at this point.”
“If we don’t find an owner in six months, it’s probably not going to happen,” he said. “At this point, we’re keeping it to what end. It’s just infinity right now.”
Candiano said the police would evaluate the value of each item to determine what to do with it. If it’s of use to another city agency, perhaps tools or supplies, the police would offer them for that purpose. Items like blankets could be donated. If it’s worth including in the municipal auction, that would happen.
Vasquez asked if items sold at auction would go into a specific fund for the police department. “I’d be happy to talk to you about that,” Candiano said, but proceeds from everything sold in the city auction go into the general fund.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
